


A Decent Man

by imperiatrix



Category: Hamlet - All Media Types, Hamlet - Shakespeare, SHAKESPEARE William - Works
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, First Meetings, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-08-15 01:53:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8037583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imperiatrix/pseuds/imperiatrix
Summary: Horatio had a bit of a crush on Prince Hamlet as a kid, but so did everyone else his age. Now that he actually knows the man, he's not sure what to make of him.





	A Decent Man

They meet at the information desk in the library. Tall, Handsome, and Ralph Lauren has a book he needs to find, and he says its not on the stacks. _Bullshit_ , Horatio thinks, but he flips up the wooden walk-out panel and says, "Let's go check again." Old Money Jr. huffs and lets Horatio lead him toward the stairs. They walk down in silence, Cable Knit picking idly at the fibers of his sweater as he descends the steps with deceptively light footfalls. Horatio spends twice as long as he needs to combing through the shelves to determine that yes, this asshole is right, and they really don't have the book.

Horatio is aware that he looks incredibly slow. He can feel a pair of pretentious gray eyes drilling into his back. He runs his hand through his hair and rocks back onto his heels.

"Can you get it through the loan?" Trust-Fund asks. Horatio nods and licks the roof of his mouth before speaking.

"I'll put out the order right away. Just tell me your name."

"Hamlet Glucksburg," he says. Horatio nods. Of course. Of course it’s fucking Hamlet Glucksburg.

"I'll get on that," Horatio replies, standing up. He wonders for a moment if he should bow, but decides against it.

Hamlet leaves the stacks. Horatio counts to thirty before following, determined not to run into him again.  _Some people have everything_ , Horatio thinks bitterly. Money, intelligence, and the cheekbones of an Olympian.

In sophomore year, Horatio manages to squeak two thousand more dollars of financial aid out of the grant office. He can cut his job in the library, but he decides to keep it. He pockets the money he earns, uses it to got out to lunch with his friends and buys school sweatshirts for his mom and dad, who complain about the cost ("Thirty five dollars," his mother tsks when she calls, "each!") but wear them proudly. He stays over Winter Break too, just because he can and his wages are pretty decent. He gets work with professor who is doing research on late medieval legal procedure and doesn’t see sunlight for three days, going in early and leaving four or five hours after dark.

His parents complain even more, but he's happy. He's making money and he's enjoying the work and he's making connections in academia. When he gently mentions this to his mother over Skype, her face goes slack and she nods. They don't have connections. Horatio's the first of the family to make it out of town in two hundred years. He's a local hero, and maybe that's the reason he never wants to go home. Sometimes in this place he feels like a high school track star running in the Olympics. He had thought that he was unbeatable, but now he doesn't even remember what it feels like to win.

He's in two lectures with Hamlet Glucksburg, and he tells his older sister that over text on the second day of the new term. He gets back a string of sixteen exclamation points, followed forty five minutes later with _"whats he like???!!”_

Horatio bites his lip, rocking back and forth in the chair at the library information desk while snow flurries down with a vengeance outside. What _is_ he like? Fashionable, Horatio supposes. He doesn’t use his phone during lecture, and he brings a laptop with him everywhere but writes his notes by hand.

 _"He seems okay,"_ Horatio types back, noncommittal.

That's not quite true, he knows. Hamlet seems smarter than anyone has the right to be. He seems confident, poised, eloquent. Horatio gets the impression that he's popular even though Hamlet's usually alone. He sits with two other Danish students in their class on theistic existentialism, but eats breakfast by himself in the dining hall every day. Horatio once ran into him while picking up Italian food at the local market and caught his eye, quickly hiding behind an industrial freezer of microwavable dinners before Hamlet got the chance to ignore him. Horatio saw the cashier take a surreptitious picture of Hamlet on her cell phone as he left the store. A lump formed in his throat on that day and never really went away afterward.

Horatio's sister doesn't seem pleased with this answer. Horatio's not surprised.

The Glucksburgs are popular all over Denmark, and some of that bleeds into the tiny villages in Northern Germany that were once Danish themselves. Horatio had a bit of a crush on Prince Hamlet when he was little, and so did his sister and a few of her friends. He can remember clearly once overhearing another student remarking to her friends that they were lucky to be the same age as the prince, because one of them might get the chance to marry him. Horatio remembers pinching a lock of his oily hair between two fingers and thinking that it could happen to anyone in the room but him.

Horatio leaves his phone on the information desk and stands up. He's put himself in a bad mood and he needs to walk among the books to right his head. He chooses a random section and starts meandering, reading spines and pulling out certain volumes to scan the blurbs on the back, leafing through the borrowing information to see the first time a book has been checked out, when was the last time that someone read it, what was their name. Horatio hoped to find matching names on two different books, to build up a catalogue of the interests of some stranger and begin to piece together who they might have been.

"'Scuse me, you're Horatio, right?"

Horatio nearly jumps out of his skin, pulling the book in his hand against his chest defensively. It's Hamlet. 

"Sorry," Horatio mutters, "I don't do surprises well."

"Quite alright," Hamlet says. "Not one for scary movies, I take it?" Horatio doesn't laugh, but he figures that he should, so he forces out a strange chuckle. Hamlet's face is like a Noorgarrd advertisement, inviting and impassive. 

"Not really," Horatio admits.

"Too bad," Hamlet says blithely, “horror films make a good first date.” Horatio catches the joke this time and laughs. Hamlet looks pleased with himself. "Your phone was vibrating," Hamlet tells him, holding it out.

“Uh, thanks. How'd you know it was mine?" Horatio asks. He takes the phone from Hamlet's hand, a tiny part of his brain registering that he just touched the Prince of Denmark.

"The picture. On the lock screen,” Hamlet says, gesturing vaguely towards Horatio's head. "You're in it. And I know that you work at the library, so," he cocks his head to side, smiling, "I inferred."

"And you know my name?"

"You know mine," Hamlet shrugs. It's a fair assumption; everyone knows Hamlet's name. "I came for a book."

"Having trouble finding it?" He's not sure if he should say  _again._ He doesn't know if Hamlet remembers their first meeting. Hamlet remembered his name, but that doesn't mean anything. They are classmates.

"Yeah," Hamlet says. He shifts his weight onto one foot, leaning casually against the stacks. "Not a clue."

"Did you ever learn the Dewey Decimal System?" Horatio laughs as he leads Hamlet over to the Information Desk.

"I did," Hamlet says.

"Would you like to review it?"

"That okay," he shrugs. “You seem proficient.”

Horatio chuckles, flipping up the panel and walking inside the circular desk. "You're just too lazy to find them." As soon as he says it, his stomach seizes. Was that smooth? Rude? Is a sniper going to take him out as soon as he leaves the library?

"Or maybe I need an excuse to be with you." Hamlet suggests, casually enough that Horatio isn't sure if that's really the truth.

"You don't," Horatio says. "You don't need an excuse." He winces at the earnestness in his own tone, hoping it comes across more friendly than starstruck.

Hamlet nods. His smile doesn't change. "Good to know."

Horatio texts his sister back that night. _"He's actually pretty cool."_

**Author's Note:**

> Why is Wittenberg using dollars instead of euros? Who knows. It's a mystery forever.


End file.
